BitLizard’s Blog

What a great pleasure it was to meet with some of my very old and special friends this past week. We are talking “long acquaintance” here …  high school and garage band days. My friend Jim – I think its been something like 26 years since I’ve seen him. His brother Ken, bass player for the band, and one of my favorite people of all time. Why has it been 15 years since I’ve talked to Ken? Steve is my life insurance agent (and brother to our drummer). So we manage to keep in touch. And Paul … who I’ve known since back far enough that our first meeting is lost in that grey misty area of the deep past … Paul is in my MSN Live Messenger chat list! But I bet prior to our little reunion last week it had been several years since we traded messages.

Where does the time go? Why don’t I devote real time to keeping in touch with the people who mean the most to me… those where the emotional ties run bone deep. Its definitely perverse in a way. Its that “Important, but not Urgent” category of life’s task list that is so hard to get right. Obviously, this is the reason that sites like Facebook and MySpace are the social phenomenon that they are, providing us an easy way to maintain a connection that your busy life my not otherwise offer much time for.

So Ken, still the most extraordinary cook out this collection of Village Inn Pancake House alumni, broke out the Rib Eye’s and the NY Strips, organized a baked potato bar, threw together a delicious green salad and fed us a great meal on the back porch of his house in the foothills. It was one of the most happy and interesting evenings I’ve had in many years. Thanks, guys. It was great catching up with everyone.

It was with a deep melancholy and, let’s face it, just plain ol’ Rocky Mountain home sickness, that I trudged back at the Denver airport for the trip home. And I confess that when it was looking like Frontier Airlines was going to bump me from their only flight of the day to Orlando, I wasn’t all that upset. One more day in big sky country, granite and pine… there are a lot worse places to be stranded.

Childhood, Family and Friends, My Life Denver, friends

It was sudden and shocking. On Saturday we learned that the night before our good friend Dan collapsed in his home while preparing the evening meal. He was 47 years old and an athletic vegetarian without vices. A far better man than most, and I include myself in that lesser group. A great husband, father and teacher. Apparently, a genetic mutation caused his heart to get its wires crossed and his heart went into ventricular fibrillation. Here one moment, and the next…. gone. My family is no stranger to sudden cardiac-related death. But this was stunning to us all the same.

We extend our most heartfelt sympathy to Dan’s wife and family. I don’t know how you get to closure on something like this. It just seems impossible. But the family is strong and I am absolutely sure that they will find a way to honor Dan with their future lives. Goodbye, Dan.

Linda always says this sort of thing better. More here and here….

Family and Friends death, family, friends, scd, vero beach